BUCKYVERSE

723.00 Redundance

723.01 There are metaphysical redundancies, repeating the same thing, saying it in a little different way each time.

723.02 There are physical redundancies when, for instance, we have a mast stepped in a hole in the ground and three tensional stays at 120 degrees. When a fourth tension member is led to an anchor at an equiradiused distance from the mast base and at one degree of circular arc away from one of the original three anchors, we then have two tension stays running side by side. When the two stays are thus approximately parallel, we find it is impossible to equalize the tensions exactly. One or the other will get the load, not both.

723.03 It is structural redundancy when a square knot is tied and an amateur says, “I’m going to make that stronger by tying more square knots on top of it.” The secondary knots are completely ineffective because the first square knot will not yield. There is a tendency of the second square knot to “work open” and thus deteriorate the first knot. Structural redundancies tend to deteriorate the effectiveness of the primary members.

723.04 There are two classes of redundant acts:

  1. conscious and knowledgeably competent, and

  2. subconscious and ignorantly fearful cautionaries.

723.05 Building codes of cities, formulated by politicians fearful of the calumny of what may befall them if buildings fall down, ignorantly insist on doubling the thickness of walls. Building codes require a safety factor of usually five, or more, to one.

723.06 Aircraft designing employs a safety factor of two to one or even no safety factor at all, while cautioning the pilot through instrumental indication of when he is approaching limit condition. The deliberately imposed safety factors of society’s building conglomerates introduce redundancy breeding redundancy, whereinas with nuclear fusion, chain-reactingthe additional weights to carry the additional weights multiply in such a manner as to increase the inefficiency imposed by the redundancy at an exponential rate implicit in Newton’s mass-attraction gravitational law: every time we double the safety factor, we fourfold the inefficiency and eightfold the unnecessary weight.